2002 Veterans issue - UAW-Chrysler.com

Ray C. Leslie
Ray C. Leslie
Job: Paint Shop (ret.)
Marysville Parts
Distribution Center
UAW Local 375
fter the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor in 1941, 17-
year-old Ray Leslie of Port
Huron, Mich., desperately wanted to
volunteer for the U.S. Army. His
father wouldn’t sign the permission
slip for him to go to war, so young
Leslie guarded bridges and tunnels
along the Canadian border for the
Michigan State Guard . A year later,
he enlisted. Within three months,
he was bound for Italy. A few days
later, he was in the thick of battle
at enemy lines, serving as a rifleman
and a BAR-man for the 135th
Infantry Regiment of the famous
34th Division, 5th Army.
“I was what they called a BARman
because I shot a Browning
Automatic Rifle,” says Leslie, 77.
As the Germans waged fierce counterattacks
against U.S. troops in February
1944, Leslie took several
shrapnel wounds to the knee but
refused to leave his post to get medical
care. “I didn’t want to leave the
guys,” recalls Leslie, “so I stayed
there and did what I could — threw
grenades and kept on shooting.”
Leslie was hit again in the shoulder
and chest; he positioned himself
behind a rock in the crossfire as bullets
chipped away at his makeshift
cover. As the day wore on, one of
those bullets struck Leslie in the
ankle. All told, he was wounded in
nine places and survived 24 hours
before undergoing surgery.
Leslie returned with military
honors, including a Purple Heart
and Combat Infantryman’s Badge.
He began working in the Marysville
Paint Shop in 1966 and retired
in 1983.
TOMORROW VETERANS DAY 2002 17